Filling In: 88 Elm

As some of you may or may not know, the city has finally released a Request for Proposals (RFP) on 88 Elm Street . Up front, here’s a link to the RFP , in case you run a development company, or if you’re Larry Glazer and you’re looking for another project to work on.

In any event, here’s some background on 88 Elm St. Somehow, despite being built sometime in the 60s, no one is exactly sure when 88 Elm St. was constructed, or where, exactly, it came from. You’d think that’d be impossible in this day and age, but it’s not. In 1998, the city decided it had enough of the owners of the property not paying their taxes and they took it. All well and good, except now it’s been empty for 15 years. It’s emptier than you might think. The city spent more than a million dollars on an asbestos abatement and a new roof. The building has no electrical system, no sprinkler system, no HVAC, no plumbing. It is a completely bare 13 story tower. That’s a bit of a rarity, and it could be yours for only $360,000. Apparently that’s the market rate for the 13-story husk of a building…

So what to do with it? If this were 1998, we’d probably tear it down and build more parking. Thankfully, we’re over that and the city will only sell it to a developer who is going to adaptively reuse the building (no adaptation required, since it’s empty!). In that vein, I’ve come up with three different start ideas for the building. Since I won’t be doing the redevelopment, feel free to borrow any of my ideas and write the proposal (a beer if you win would be appreciated!).

Apartments

In our apartment plan for 88 Elm (to be marketed as 88E), there would be 4 one-bedroom+home office units per floor. This would create 44 units in the building. Finishes would be medium to high end, with all apartments having in-unit laundry. The first floor would contain a small commercial space for a café/commissary, and the remainder of the space would be given over to owner amenities including a gym, a party room, and a bike storage room. The roof would be finished as community space. Gas grills would be installed for use as well.

Hotel

As a hotel, each floor would contain 10 hotel rooms. This would allow for the construction of a 110-room facility. The first floor would have a bar/restaurant. The elevator to the roof would be set aside for the restaurant to allow for a rooftop bar. Space on each floor has been set aside for housekeeping needs. The first floor would contain some space for guest amenities, such as a fitness room. Hotel operations would be placed with mechanicals in the basement.

Student Housing

The final concept for 88 Elm is student housing. It would probably require buy-in from one of the local colleges, as the build-out is somewhat unique. Each floor would consist of 9 rooms. One room, with a private bath, is set aside for an RA. Rooms would be paired with a bathroom suite style. Based on room sizes, 5 to 6 students would be assigned to each suite. Each floor would be setup to accommodate 20 students. The whole building would then be a 220-bed dormitory. The ground floor would contain retail fronting the street. Depending on the partner college’s needs, some of the first floor could be reserved for student amenities.

I personally favor the apartments plan most and the student housing plan least. Unfortunately, it is highly likely that the student-housing plan would be most profitable, while the apartment plan would be least profitable. The hotel is a real toss-up. No matter how 88 Elm is redeveloped, it’s reuse will be a major boon to downtown.

• • •

About Matthew Denker:

Matthew Denker is a Project Director by day and a fantasy real estate tycoon by night. He has a deep interest in Rochester, NY, as well as the subjects of new urbanism, walkability, mass transit, and land use. Going forward he hopes to combine all of those things to make Rochester a city competitive not only with other small, successful cities, such as Portland and Minneapolis, but even better by leveraging its easy access to the world-class cities of Toronto and New York.

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16 Responses to “Filling In: 88 Elm”

Love all three ideas. I do agree with you about the hotel idea even though it is probably needed with RIT and the University so close by. Also, love this page and all you do with it. Thank you for keeping the memories of Rochester alive!!!

I always wondered about 88 Elm Street and why it stood there empty. (The cynic in me should have known the City of Rochester owned it.) It’ll be tough to turn it into anything profitable with the Cadillac right beside it and the type of residents it attracts and to which it caters.

I like your apartment concept best. However, I’d like to see the first floor (and possible second floor as well) turned into a grocery store. If we’re going to have more and more downtown housing, someone needs to take the risk of opening a decent store with fresh vegetables and toilet paper. 88 Elm is centrally located to Sibley (with its planned residential component), Temple Building, East End, and downtown offices for prepared foods (at lunch time for workers and nighttime for downtown-living residents) and groceries.

I know I’m describing the former Wegmans at Midtown, but we’re on the cusp of hitting that tipping point for a viable grocery store downtown.

First, thank you both very much! Second, I think some sort of grocery in the Sibley Building would be better. Not only is there more square footage, but it has all of those great interior walls that can be covered with shelving without hurting the street (see the recent College Town conversation for more on this). There’s also the possibility for a much larger store in the podium of Midtown Tower. I must admit that I do not know Buckingham’s plans for the larger, lower floors.

Building was build in 1920 per rochester gis. I remember hearing about the last owner destroying the pipes and electric before the city took it so that it wouldn’t be turn key. Also if you search good with a proxy search you will find cool newspapers from the 30’s and 40’s about business in the building.

How about cowork space? Maker spaces, artist spaces? Think Hungerford, Village gate, and High Falls Cowork spaces. Not sure if the market is already saturated in these areas, but it would only require the basic electrical and plumbing installation and the rest can be put together by the tenants.

Hi John, this is an good idea, but makes for boring floorplans to show off.

I’m not sure that the market is saturated, but the income from such an operation is generally low. This creates economic problems with supporting the ongoing maintenance of a skyscraper.

There are other properties more suitable to coworking space, is I guess where the argument is going. That said, there is the possibility to incorporate site specific amenities, such as coworking space for students in the dorm plan.

Additionally, because only office space is a high enough intensity use to demand 3 elevators for 12 floors. It is possible to split the building into a few floors of one use, serviced by one elevator, and a few floors of something else serviced by the second/others. In this way, you might be able to set aside a floor or two for coworking space and “subsidize” it with the other floors.

This will work better with students or a hotel, and less well with residents.

Re Grocery store
There IS a grocery store downtown, only half a mile (11 minute walk) from 88 Elm – Abundance Coop has fresh produce, toilet paper, dairy, bread, frozen meat and fish, and most other things one needs. I do agree Sibley would be a good spot for a larger grocery, or even one of the smaller urban Target stores that they put into historic beloved buildings.

Re student housing
I am curious on why this is your least favorite use. One of the things downtown needs more of is life on the street at night and weekends, and students seem to provide that in other cities. Maybe grad student apartments would be better than actual dorms though.

Re Next to Cadillac Hotel
The Cadillac is certainly not a plus as it is, but has always struck me as having great possibilities. Imagine a retro-cool cocktail lounge with hotel or apartments above – keeping the funky old Cadillac sign. I heard there was a plan to stop using it as overflow homeless housing so maybe the next step will be some positive development there.

Never believe the building’s date on the City of Rochester’s geographic information system (GIS) or most real estate listings. These dates are provided by the property assessors office and are only the best guess of whoever is doing the assessment.

There is no historical research backing any of them up. For example, the Academy Building at 13 South Fitzhugh was really built in 1873 but the City’s GIS lists it as 1930.

So I guess my biggest issue with student housing is that while it makes the most money for the building’s owner, it creates the least economic activity (hotel) or stability (apartments) for the area. I mean, if it were my building, and I was going purely for profits, I’d kill to have it be student housing. Let’s be honest you’re looking at 20+ students a floor. With a dozen floors, it’s about 240 beds. At a cool $1k a month in board (which is ASSUREDLY less than the tower a few blocks from here), you’re pulling down a quarter of a million in income each year. It’s a money printing press. I’d need a second tower just like it to swim around in all the money I’m making Scrooge McDuck style. But really, what am I doing for the neighborhood? Not enough.

Maybe the issue is too personal to me. I certainly think there are worse ideas than an of these (notice that none of my proposals are to put an office building back in).

The building has a lot of potential, relatively cheap shell of a building that can be made into whatever the buyer can think of. The problem is not only the Cadillac Hotel next door, but the midtown site across the street. Who knows when there will be activity across Elm and not just dusty lots. I’m not the most trusting of the City’s ability to competently redevelop the site into a downtown urban center a suburban abortion to make the p-towners feel comfortable in the scary city.

The Cadillac Hotel is the biggest road block to any development proposal for this building. Having student housing next to that building/use would be extremely problematic. Disconnected parking makes apartment uses a stretch also. This is a really tough site, but I give the City credit for doing the most it can to make this RFP viable for a potential user/developer.

This building was contracted by and constructed for Rochester Hospital Service (Blue Cross) in 1970. This location was chosen because it could be attached to the then-presently owned and occupied building at 41 Chestnut Street. It was a fully equipped, modern office building, with three elevators. In 1980, it was realized that the building had been outgrown.

During the relocation investigation alternatives were considered, including moving outside of downtown Rochester. Max Farish became involved and proposed that he buy the Edwards building and convert it to offices for Blue Cross, The final choice was made when Mr. Farish agreed to buy the existing building at 88 Elm Street and lease the remodeled Edwards Building to Blue Cross for a 10-year period. This proposal was accepted and the move was completed in approximately 1981, leaving 88 Elm Street empty. Mr. Farish became ill and the building’s future was involved in his many real estate enterprises and seemed to have been forgotten. This is all I know about it, as I retired from Blue Cross in 1986.

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